While this may still leave employees woefully below the poverty level – before taxes working 40 hours a week at $8 an hour will net about $16,000 (assuming no vacation or sick days) – Rhode Island has been moving in the right (read: progressive) direction. Just last year, legislators raised the minimum wage from $7.45 to $7.75. So over the last two years the new faces you see at WalMart and Dunkin’ Donuts will be an additional $4 a day – or almost $1000 a year. Maybe that’s a month’s rent.

Rhode Island now mandates businesses pay the lowest wage workers at least as much as they could earn in Massachusetts, though one can still do a quarter better in Connecticut where the minimum wage is $8.25. This, of course, is a completely useless comparison as virtually nobody who earns $16,000 a year can afford to move anywhere other than to the streets.

Thanks to everyone who expended their valuable political capital for this issue. And let’s help our congressional delegation advance this cause at the national level, where they are fighting for an increase to more than $10 an hour by 2015!

VN:R_U [1.9.20_1166]

Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Big win for Rhode Island's lowest wage workers, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating

One response to “Big win for Rhode Island’s lowest wage workers”

Once again, the photo really helps to tell the story. Those pictured look focused, interested, and very down-to-earth. They know full well what they did, and, better than the rest of us, what is left to accomplish.
They advanced the ball downfield in the real world.
Congratulations.